Week 1 in Drawing

I don't have anything crafty to share, but I have been logging a lot of time with my drawing class. Here are my sketches for the week - all studies in charcoal. I've never used it before and it's a bit messy as opposed to my fav, colored pencils. But I think I'm getting the hang of it. These 3 pages were done during class. The big challenges for me with these were getting used to the charcoal and also drawing from 3D objects, which I'm really not very good at, lol. These are all in my big drawing book, the pages are 18x24 inches.

Study #1 - Charcoal Stick - Wooden White Bird - August 24, 2011

Study #2 - Charcoal Stick - Ceramic Black Cat - August 24, 2011

Study #3 - Charcoal Stick - Faux Pear and Glossy Stone Apple - August 26, 2011

These other 4 are from my smaller sketch book which is 9x12. They are my at home studies so all of these goodies were actually found around our home ;)



Sketch #1 - Ceramic Bird - Charcoal Stick and Pencil - August 27, 2011

Sketch #2 - Charcoal Pencil and Vine - Turtle Sand Beanie - August 27, 2011

Sketch #3 - Charcoal Pencil and Vine - Littlest Pet Shop Fish - August 28, 2011

Sketch #4 - Charcoal Pencil and Vine - Silk Orchids Mini - August 28, 2011

The beanie turtle and orchids are my favorite of the bunch. I think I've finally come up with a method that works for me with the charcoal and that's to use the pencils and the vines. The stick is a little hard to control but it does give nice deep black lines and shades great for big surfaces. I forced myself out of my comfort zone and stuck with solely the stick on my big pad projects and then experimented with the others at home. Anyway, just thought I'd share. Hope you all had a wonderful week!





Altering My Sketchbook

My drawing class requires two drawing pads. The octopus is on an 18x24 inch drawing pad and this one is my sketch book, just 9x12. I didn't really come up with a plan for these books ahead of time, instead they both worked out with one thing leading to another. With the octopus, it started with the blue pencil that led to a blue varigated D that led to fishes in the rest of the letters which led to the octopus. This sketch pad went much quicker mostly because it's quite a bit smaller, but also because the inspiration for the peacock came immediately after I finished coloring in the sketch of the girl. The colors I picked ended up reminding me of a peacock so I went with it starting with the feather and then drawing the bird's profile in the left corner. The colors are much darker and saturated in real life, probably because I used a flash again since it's late and I know I won't get around to taking any photos in the morning. Anyway, even though I'm not doing anything crafty, I thought I'd share ;) Hope you enjoy and are having a great week! Thanks for visiting!

Uniquefying My Drawing Pad

All three of us girls have started back-to-school and it has been so hectic here for the past couple weeks! Apple and I started this week while Cherry began last week (kindergarteners in our district start a week later due to individual testing the first week). Unfortunately, because we're still getting used to the routine, our home has been in this perpetual state of looking like a tornado blew through. And of course instead of cleaning, I'm playing around with doodles on my drawing pad. After all, I don't want it looking like everyone else's pad, right? ;) So here's my fun huge doodle to uniquefy my drawing pad. The close up is to show you the fun little fish and bubbles I put in the letters. Just a quick post since I'm off to read for biology now. Thanks for stopping by and seeing what we're up to!

For the Hubs

Paul's birthday was on Monday and we surprised him with some fun homemade banners, lemon cream-cheese cake, and gifts. These were my crafty creations for his day. Of course I had to make him a card. And I couldn't help but use birthday Josh. The girls demanded daddy have a goatee on his card so I did my best to replicate his face fuzz. Paul loved it, lol! Apple also wanted daddy to have his blue eyes so I added a very slight blue line next to the pupil. There isn't much room there to do that, but I think it turned out quite well ;)



My dear hubby is an avid reader like myself and I had found a bunch of thrift books right up his alley. The classics 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Treasure Island, both of which he hasn't read surprisingly, plus a bunch of 'literature' mini books on classic poetry and myths, just like some of his other lit books he kept from his classes in college. I know that sounds completely boring to most people, myself included ha! But he loves that stuff ;) So I made a new bookmark for him (he's great at losing those) for his new reads and a bookmark for his other project that I made...

... A book journal! He's been talking about keeping track of his reads better and so I took a composition notebook and covered it. I also covered the inside panels to have a little folder spot for him to slip stuff in. Then for the first half of the book I organized the pages, putting prompts for his book entries (Title, Author, Date, Rating, Plot, and Thoughts) along with list sections for what books he wants to read, favorites, etc. Because he loves writing as well I put in some fun poetry prompts for him and writing challenges. After seeing how cool his turned out, I'm itching to make one for myself! Especially since most of my summer has been spent reading rather than crafting, hehe. Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope y'all have a great weekend!

Crazy for Reptiles

Though Cherry is usually the reptile fan in our family, Apple also jumped the reptile bandwagon while we were at the zoo. She really got into all the lizards, snakes, and turtles. She calls the huge snake she got as a souvenir "daddy snake". Paul and I like to call him Jake the Snake like from Rango since his tail jingles, he's got the evil viper eyes, and well Jake the Snake is just plain fun. I truly expected Cherry to get a snake since snakes are her favorite but she was really intent on bringing home a dinosaur. She picked out this very bright blue T-Rex which reminds me of blue raspberry icees. The T-Rex has yet to gain a name that actually sticks other than T-Rex, but we're working on it ;) 

The zoo trip was just the girls and I. Paul had a few doctors appointments and some tests to do and it just turned out that they were on a day that I didn't have any classes. So we thought it would be fun to take the girls up north with us and I would spend the day at the zoo with them. They loved it so much that even after getting home late at night after a 5 hour drive home, Apple still asked the next morning if we could go back up to the zoo again, lol! They really loved seeing all those animals. We'll definitely be doing this again next year ;)

Elephants and Rhinos

The elephants were so cool that the girls wanted to visit their exhibit twice. And I'm glad we did. The first time was for the elephant show which was really just the zookeepers talking about how they care for the elephants and the elephant demonstrating a few things. Both the girls liked the elephant, but weren't overly amazed about this show like they were at the bird show earlier. However, the second time we came back, the baby elephant Zoey was out. The girls loved watching her and her momma ;)

This is the last week before school starts back up for us, so we're definitely trying to make the most of it! Plus we still have our back-to-school shopping to do, eek! Anyways, I hope you all enjoy the pages and have a great Monday!

Kitty Skirt and Refashioned Shorts

I've been trying to fit in some back-to-school sewing. This was some remnant fabric I picked up from Joann's probably 2-3 years ago. I'm sure I had some idea for a little blankie with it - back then all the fabric I bought was for potential kid's quilts. I also had this black floral fat quarter hanging around, which I probably picked up about the same time as the remnant. They've obviously been sitting around unloved for quite a while and since my girls aren't getting any smaller I thought I should get it used up. I whipped up a simple tiered skirt a la no pattern for Apple since she's our resident cat lover. I'm not crazy about the material, but Apple seems to make anything look cute so it works ;) Besides, she loves the kitties and I suppose that's all that really matters.

This is a refashion from Cherry's darling cordouroy leggings that she got for Christmas. She's just been so hard on clothes this past year. These were her favorite pants and they had huge gaping holes in the knees since she wore them all the time. Because they taper and are quite snug even on my little string bean daughter, I couldn't cuff them like I wanted to originally. So I found some matching fabric in my stash and proceeded to refashion them into shorts with a cute ruffle. Luckily for me, even though Cherry was upset at losing her pants, she was really happy with the ruffle addition. I'm hoping to make a matching pillowcase tank to go with it using the rest of the fat quarter print and some solid pink that I have onhand. First I have to either buy or learn how to make bias tape though. Anyway, thanks for stopping by ;) Have a wonderful weekend!

Big Cats

Apple's favorite thing at the zoo was seeing the big cats. There was this beautiful leopard pacing right next to the glass of its exhibit. It both scared and delighted all the kiddos that were watching. Both the girls were more excited than frightened. Most of the big kitties were lounging in the shade or napping. Last week when we went thrifting we picked up the cutest white tiger for $1. It looked brand new but even so she still went through a cycle in the wash. Apple's named her Sasha. She's a great addition to all her other tigers!

Cherry has had a big thing for maps lately and she played our little navigator at the zoo. This page happens to be one of my favorites that I've made, even though it doesn't use my favorite pictures. I think I just like the sampling of all the papers and the fun little animal stack ;) Last month we picked up a yearly pass to the wildlife museum here. It's just a small museum, but every Saturday it has a fun kids club activity where the kiddos get to learn about a specific animal. The girls love it and it adds a little something educational to their week while out of school. Plus I think in a way it feels like an extension of the zoo. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the page and have a fab Friday!

Exhibits

Cherry and Apple loved looking for the animals in their exhibits. "It's like I-Spy!" Cherry said a few times. Of course her favorite was looking at the snakes. Apple was amazed with all the animals and got quite the fun surprise in the rainforest open exhibit as a bright blue bird flew right by her and up to a branch. It flew so close that it whooshed her hair up! The cutesy animal papers are from Sassfras that I picked up on clearance quite a while ago. I had no idea what I'd use it for at the time and I'm so glad I have it now! The alpha viper is from a darling paper I got years ago. The animals were all very boy and boy colored, but I just loved the embossed animals and alpha theme.

The girls really liked giraffes as well and it was a real treat to get to see one up close. The zoo wasn't doing a feeding activity today so we just watched as the giraffe walked around her exhibit. Cherry mistakenly read the height sign as 6 feet instead of 16. She shouted out "Woah, that giraffe is 6 feet tall!" lol, too funny! Thanks for visiting and enjoy the layout!

Braces and a Zoo Page

Guess what Cherry got last week? Yup, braces! She's got a 'shark tooth' coming out - a tooth that's erupted into her roof palette. Long story short she had to have 2 baby teeth pulled (one still had a long full root) and had her braces put in to set her foundation for when the tooth has fully grown out. Then they will attach the shark tooth and the braces with pull it forward to the gums where it needs to be. The orthodondist said 6 months to 1 year and then 4-6 months wearing a retainer after that. Not all her permanent teeth have showed themselves so hopefully this will be the only 'shark tooth'. Cherry was super excited to get them and loves them even with all the extra weird brushing and floss stuff. I'm so glad she's happy about it because her attitude makes it about a million times easier for us to help her take care of them. Her favorite part is choosing the color of her ties, of course ;) She had purple and pink, but because one of the brackets came off (it was on a capped tooth) we had to go back early so she picked out new ones and is currently sporting watermelon and red.

Most of my time lately has been spent cleaning, reorganizing, and listing things to make for birthdays and Christmas (yup it's about time for me to be prepping for that already) plus a little back-to-school sewing. But I've managed some blog hopping time and came across a cute and probably old idea for talking about the kiddos online by using nicknames. As you've probably already noticed, I've come up with aliases for the girls here on the old bloggo - Cherry and Apple. I figure since they're such little fruitcakes, I'd nickname them after fruits. Obviously C is Cherry and A is Apple so nothing drastic ;) Anyhoo, it's been forever since I've actually printed any pictures and I figured I'd start with the photos I love right now - our summer staycation activities - to kick start my scrapping mojo. So here's the first page to the zoo part of what will be our summer 2011 album. Hope you all have a happy Monday and thanks for stopping by!